by Anthony Morinello
We’ve all heard the argument for or against the wage of the professional athlete. Professional athletes are being paid millions of dollars just for playing a sport. However, this sport also brings in millions of dollars in revenue, and without the athletes to play them, you have no sport, thus, no revenue. This debate has gone on forever, and as long as there are professional sports nothing will change.
College sports are a bit different. Players are not being paid, in fact, there are rules against it. A player in college must maintain an amateur status in order to compete, and thus may not get any money (besides a scholarship) and may not sign any endorsement deals while with a university organization. This is another debate that will last as long as there are amateur sports.
These ‘amateur’ teams however are being coached by people that make sometimes staggering amounts of money. Joe Paterno, who has coached the Penn State football team for 42, makes over $500,000 a year now. You can argue that he had put his time into the organization and therefore the 6 digit salary is warranted, however, other coaches are paid even more. Alabama's Nick Saban is the highest paid coach at $4 million per year, while Oklahoma's Bob Stoops makes over $3 million. Ohio State's Jim Tressel, Florida's Urban Meyer and South Carolina's Steve Spurrier make upward of $2 million annually.
This leads to the question, should a coach make a 6 or 7 digit salary when his players aren’t being paid a dime.
The answer is absolutely. The difference between a college athlete and a college coach is that the coach is an employee of the university, whereas the athlete is a student. College athletes are in school to get an education first, and play sports second. What they are getting is a college education. A coach, however, is not trying to get a degree. His job is to put his team together to get out there and compete from week to week.
Lets remember that if an athlete is good enough they will eventually go pro. Joe Paterno may get $500,000 a year, but a lot of athletes get multi-million dollar signing bonuses, plus higher salaries and to top it all off, endorsement deals. How many endorsement deals do you think a coach gets? Coaches are not the marketing force behind merchandise, it’s the players who play the game. Therefore, the coach has to get his money somewhere else, his salary. Even that does not compete with the athlete, but it helps.
Another difference is security. An athlete cannot lose his scholarship due to any athletic reason, injury or otherwise. In fact, he can only lose it due to an academic reason, being that they are a student first, athlete second. A coach does not have this security. If the team does not perform, they are out of a job. Period. Coaches are paid high salaries by the university because they in turn make sure that the team wins. If the team wins, then more people go to the games and more people are interested in attending the university. The salary to the coach is more of an investment than a paycheck. If the team does not perform, fewer people attend the games and fewer people have an interest to attend school, and thus, a loss in revenue for the university. Therefore, it is riskier to be a coach than an athlete.
Finally, the demand for a good college coach his higher than the demand for a good college player. You can have the greatest athlete ever born be on your team and you are still not guaranteed a championship. However, you can have a mediocre team being led by an outstanding coach have a greater chance at winning a championship. The reason is that it is the coach that teaches his athletes how to, not only work and play as a team, but also how to better themselves individually. Therefore, it is the coach who really makes the athlete what he is. If he coaches just 5 or 6 athletes that eventually go pro and each make multi million dollar salaries, I think he deserves a decent wage himself for his efforts.
The debate will continue however, that is, as long as people debate how much athletes should be paid…
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=ap-paterno-salary&prov=ap&type=lgns
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4 comments:
I totally agree that coaches get payed way to much. I really like this blog very information yet true
I really enjoyed your blog. It went both ways and before reading this i thought that athletes were being paid way to much but you put my thought in the middle.
Your blog really got me thinking about whether they are being paid too much or not. Before reading your blog i thought that they were, but now your blog put me in the middle that i dont no what to believe. good work!
I really enjoyed reading this blog because it was very informative. I had always agreed that the professional athlete got paid too much but when i read this, it kept me in focused on both sides of the reasoning. Awesome blog!
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